Does Bill Belichick's Denial Shift Blame Toward Tom Brady?

"Tom's personal preferences on his footballs," Bill Belichick said, "are something he can talk about in much better detail, and [give more] information than I could possibly provide."

With that line of his remarkably candid and verbose Thursday morning press conference, as broadcast on ESPN, the New England Patriots head coach took the dumpster full of steaming nonsense that is "Deflategate" and emptied it on top of quarterback Tom Brady.

Belichick claimed total ignorance of the subject. He said he first heard about the controversy Monday morning, in response to media reports the league was looking into the matter.

Since then, WEEI.com reported that the footballs used by the Patriots in the first half of the AFC Championship Game were substituted at halftime because they were underinflated. According to ESPN's Chris Mortensen, 11 of those 12 balls were two pounds below the minimum air pressure level. 

Belichick went into great detail about how he orders practice balls doctored to be harder to throw and kick, so the players will face "a harder situation in practice than they'll ever have to deal with in a game."

He flashed a little of his trademark contempt at the idea he'd waste time messing around with footballs while coaching in a conference championship game.

"In my entire coaching career," he intoned, "I have never talked to any player, any staff member, about football air pressure," drawing out each of the last three words as if to suggest there could not be a more ridiculous subject of conversation. "That is not a subject that I have ever brought up."

If Belichick's goal was to make absolutely sure we knew he had nothing to do with the state of the Patriots' game balls last Sunday, he succeeded. Unless that press conference was a seething pack of lies (in which case Belichick should be getting Oscar buzz), he must be held blameless.

From a league punishment standpoint, that's the perfect move. After all, it's Belichick and his coaching staff who were punished for the 2007 "Spygate" practice-taping incident. Were the NFL to find Belichick guilty of knowingly breaking the rules to gain a competitive edge—cheating—again, Roger Goodell would have no choice but to come down hard on him.

From a football coaching standpoint, it's almost inexplicable.

Usually, in these situations, the coach puts on a brave face. He says the buck stops with him. He accepts the blame for whatever his players or coaches did on his behalf, under his watch, and says he'll get it corrected. That's not what happened here. 

It's one thing to flatly deny any involvement in the controversy, and leave the implied follow-up question, "Then how did it happen?" unanswered. It's another to look into a forest of cameras and microphones and tell everyone to ask your quarterback.

"It's really unfortunate that this is the story," Belichick said, "coming off two great playoff victories by our football team." He's absolutely right; it is unfortunate.

NFL fans and media always spend the two-week layover before the Super Bowl whipped up into a frenzy, desperate for anything to talk about. Instead of spending that time talking about Brady's legacy, the Patriots' incredible dynasty or any of the possible breakout Super Bowl stars who've flown under the radar so far, we're talking about rogue ball boys and the ideal gas law. 

Worse, we're spending all this week lamenting another layer of patina on the Patriots' once-gleaming legacy, and there are quite a few demands for outlandish, extravagant punishment.

Of course, for all we know, this was just a trick of atmospheric pressure or a mis-calibrated pressure gauge. That doesn't change the fact that Thursday afternoon, Brady will get behind a podium and stand before a firing squad of reporters demanding answers—and his head coach is the one who trained the shotgun mics on him.

"We will turn all our attention and focus on the Seattle Seahawks," Belichick said in closing. I'm sure Brady wishes he could.